Well, *I* liked it

[flemmings]

Have been watching films again. Got 夜宴/ The Banquet on a 'burned from disk' that they said might not work on all DVD players. My Seven Samurai is burned so I figured I was OK. I was half-OK. The DVD stalled after three seconds when I pressed play, but was quite happy to fast-forward at a leisurely pace. So I watched it on ff, reading subtitles, and pressed play every so often to get fragments of the voices. Consequently I know what happens, and that's about it.

Then I watched Wu Ji/ 無極/ The Promise.

Not sure what all the griping is about it on this side, from people who swallow the frenetic idiocy and low budget cheesiness of HK wuxia with nary a murmur. But then, I don't watch this stuff for the fight scenes and I fancy they do. No, I watch for the live action manga-ness of it all, and The Promise delivers in spades. Fairy tales, lovely colours, lovely scenery, lovely sets, lovely actors, archetypal emotions rather nicely done- stuff I've seen in (my no means extensive watching of) low-budget HK fantasy wuxia, but here done high-budget and clean. Costumes that are better than operatic- they're masque-like. Music that's the same. And, umm...

...Nicholas Tse. No, I know why the reviewers don't like the film. They're western guys. Western guys are not going to appreciate the over-the-top delicious languid petulant villainousness of Nicholas Tse's Wuhuan. The lethal fans! The feathers! The little gold hand-on-a-stick that he uses to push people's chins up so he doesn't actually have to *touch* them! (Other picture here, and scroll down.)

And also a lot of erotesis where you least expect it ie among all the guys *but* Nicholas Tse. Kunlun and Snow Wolf, Kunlun and Guangming- I dunno. Carrying a guy on your back has, like, resonances; to say nothing of bear-hugs from behind the way Kunlun and Snow Wolf do it. (Oh-and-look, he's played by Ye Liu who was Fu Chai's lover in Lan Yu. He looks a lot less pretty here than the stills suggest he does there.)

Also has Sanada Hiroyuki, unseen for lo these many years since he played that homoerotic tied-up-and-unspeakably-abused scene in Nemuranai Machi- Shinjuku zame: or presumed unseen, when he actually played Doumon in Onmyouji. Which stunned me.

(What I haven't checked out is whether I was listening to both these guys dubbed. Tse I know speaks mandarin; Sanada and Jang Dong Gun not so likely.)

Comments

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

*snotty* I don't swallow the frenetic idiocy and low budget cheesiness of HK wuxia. And therefore The Promise's lousy CGI are very off-putting.

Also, I never liked Nicholas Tse.

Must admit the costumes and set look very good though, might be incentive enough for a rental. Liu Ye was in fact very pretty in Lan Yu. Hmm.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I assume this is my unfamiliarity with film generally, but I didn't notice any cheesy CGI. Or rather, all CGI look cheesy to me. Even when, as in Hero, they aren't CGI. I mean, so it makes things look like anime. This is virtue where I come from.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

I missed The Promise when it bflounced into cinemas here (despite the negative reviews, am sucker for this kind of eyeball-burning crack, having actually watched 夜宴 and Golden Boobies at the flicks) - reminds me that it might be time for a trip to the VCD store.

Checked out Atsumori, thanks for the link - read his story before in one of the links for the Genpei Wars when was poking around for background to Hoichi the Earless, without remembering their names *facepalm* IIRC wasn't Naozane/Atsumori a frequent topic for ye olde equivalent of fanfiction and doujinshi?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

wasn't Naozane/Atsumori a frequent topic for ye olde equivalent of fanfiction and doujinshi?

You mean Noh plays? ^_^ Yes, but so was everyone. I think- in my limited reading- that yes, one references Naozane/Atsumori as one references clasical Greek pairs, with the caveat that everyone identifies with Naozane- smitten hopelessly by the pathetic beauty of the refined young warrior he is compelled to kill. The Chinese Collective Unconscious does leak into Japan, but the uhh thrust of it seems less honour-love conflicted 'Oh I love this beautiful young man and I must kill him alas!' and more adolescent-S&M 'Oh this young man is beautiful *because* I must kill him hubba-hubba!' OTOH that might just be Mishima and my classical Japanese prof talking.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

this young man is beautiful *because* I must kill him hubba-hubba!

XD would that be considered mono no aware then? ("Alas, poor Atsumori; I knew him well," as one particularly explicit woodcut appeared to suggest.) Perhaps stray sakura petals drifted into the stream of the Chinese Collective Unconscious too.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Brief-lived Atsumori is of course mono no aware. But I have to say there are times when I suspect that the Japanese don't mind resorting to artifice to get a proper mono no aware thrill-- ie if the beautiful object is not sufficiently short-lived and fleeting, they're willing to help it be so. War's one way of doing this. Best way of guaranteeing a steady supply of young-hence-beautiful dead young men.

That said, there's some pretty good mono no aware moments in Heike involving older men like Tadanori saying good-bye to his poetry teacher and Sanemori dying his white hair black so the Minamoto warriors won't hesitate to attack him, snerf snerf sniffle.

[shalimar1001.livejournal.com]

Both of these movies, along with Flying Daggers(did I get the name right?) and Curse of Golden Flower, are all by-products of Hidden Dragon (the name is too long in English) by An Lee.

Actually, there is a famous parody circulating on the web shortly after WuJi was in theatre. It becomes so famous that makes the director of the film so angry, who claimed to sue the author of the parody. The parody summarized the film into 1 sentense - a bloody case caused by a piece of steamed bread.

大明宫词 is better though longer version for recounts of Tang dynasty. It has very westernized styled scripts, which has double-blade. It explains the concept while complicating it. But we all prey for the beautiful costumes. And you will find the beautiful goddess in Wuji playing the leading role inside. She was so young and beautiful 10 years ago in 大明宫词.